Thesis supervisor: Miklós Gubán
Location of studies (in Hungarian): Budapest Business School Abbreviation of location of studies: BBS
Description of the research topic:
The intensity of the material flow processes connected to production and services is ever increasing due to economic growth and expanding supply chains. One of the most prominent material flow channels is road transportation, which is economical mostly in local and regional scale, but because of its many advantages, it is applied for larger distances as well. This high ratio of application compared to the other ways of transportation is due to dense road network, fast execution, high level of adaptation to the need of the customer, and the small strain on the product during transportation. The main characteristic of international product transportation is that it mainly consists of transport loops. The main goal of transport service providers is economical operation, in other words, the minimization of the transport cost per product.
The planning of the inter-enterprise material flow processes of the supply chain is rather complicated, and the description of the processes requires observations. The timing of fulfilling the resource requirements of the material flow is exceptionally hard to define. The logistical costs play an important role in the discussion of the topic. As an example: where and when should the vehicle refuelled in order to optimize the costs, while taking into account the possible places of refuelling and the dependence of the fuel price on them.
In the first stage, the national and international literature of the topic needs be evaluated. The already discussed parts of the topic and the applied solutions are to be methodically reviewed.
The main cost elements have to be defined that have the largest effect on the processes. Their definition is of utmost importance. The next important part of the research is to define a condition system that well circumscribes the possible solutions. This system would precisely model the problem.
By using the logistical cost elements, an objective function can be defined that would optimize the material flow among the enterprises. The goal is not only to fulfil the needs for resources, but also to assign the optimal service providers that would provide the resources. Furthermore, the route of material flow that belongs to the optimal assignments has to be defined. The evaluation of a solution method for the optimization task connected to the given model and its fine tuning to the specific task are also important elements of the research work.
Required language skills: English Recommended language skills (in Hungarian): English
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